I've been looking to grow our business using PPC campaigns, and have been experimenting with Adwords both on a PPC level, and with CPM Site campaigns. I've been focusing now more with search ads with keywords related to our site and the products we're trying to sell. Our conversions have been around 3% from organic search results, so I'm frustrated with my experience so far with Adwords as so far after two days I've spent a bunch of money with no return. My next step is to try and run a campaign with Overture, however I've found the interface tedious to use, and obviously as everyone knows you have to wait for the campaign to go live. However, I've also read that e-commerce sites have enjoyed success with a lower cost per sale using it. If anyone here has an e-commerce site and promotes their products online I'd love to hear your thoughts or what you've found to be effective (Adwords, Overturem Miva, etc.), along with any examples of what you've found worked well in optimizing your ads. Thanks in advance! Ian
I have used both Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing (call it Overture, for now). Our cost per conversion has been very close between the two, for quite a while google was higher but the past 3 months it's been lower. We make approximately $3 for every dollar spent on PPC, not bad. I like the idea that google allows you to select geographic areas for your campaigns, we just got done separating the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. This will allow us to track sales and cost separately and determine whether we will continue to pay for exposure to countries outside the US. We can also customize our ad to each country, ie "Low Cost Shipping To The UK", whereas in the past we had emphasized free US shipping. I don't know what kind of business you are in, but we have developed landing pages for each ad group that are one click away from where we display our merchandise. These landing pages are also optimized for organic searches. Our best results, by far, have come from specific keywords that include a brand name. Rather than spending more money for the term "Widgets", we have better results and pay less for the term "Acme Widgets". Sure, we get less traffic but when someone is looking for a name brand they are more likely to but, in my opinion. Someone googling "sneakers" may be looking for information, someone googling "Nike Shoes" is probably more likely to buy some. Keep a close eye on your cost per conversion and you should be able to tell quickly if it will work for you.
Adwords generally has poor conversions because google users are less likely to buy. Overture is much better.
Pahrump Mike, Like your comments on specific keywords, but I think we should take it one step further. How many consumers would add their location to "Nike Shoes", an example; Nike Shoes on Sale Littlerock, AR. As I am sure you know Google will default to Nike Shoes, but on Yahoo/Overture a 10 cents bid will get you top placement. Have a good day, Jack
Generally I think the traffic at AdWords is much higher than Overture. And the cost is cheaper at Overture. Therefore if you have limited budget, Overture should be the way to go. However, if you are almost certain that you can make $more-money for every $1 you spend on ad, go for both network and try to spend as much as possible. For popular keywords, I usually adjust my bid to stay at position 3 or 4. With enough budget to last 24 hours, you will get almost as much impression as with position 1 but the cost is usually much less. The CTR is lower than if you occupied position 1, the conversion is also slightly less once traffic reach your page. However, the ROI is still higher for most of my campaigns - at least for 9 out of 10 of my campaigns.
google adwords are really effective if you sit down and learn some strategies eg. google will rate your ad above someone else's ad at a lower ppc because your ad has more relevance to the product/site. but overture will rate ads depending on cost of bidder which means that relevancy of ad makes no difference. this is unfair to advertisers who want to budget on ads and yet want to be ranked on their good ad skills. this is where google stands above overture as google play the game more fairly than overture. i have ads that are as cheap as .13 and .06 per keywords and yet they are on 1st page on google just due to very high ctr (click through ratio). there are some fantastic sites for adwords coaching that get fast results. 2 sites i can highly recommend are http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com?a_aid=P9j2exlu (real adwords experts) http://www.wealthmasterysite.com (reviews on top ebooks on adwords)